Day of Russian National Unity Should Be and Can Become a Celebration of Diversity, Teslya Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 3 – When Russians mark the Day of National Unity on November 4, they should be celebrating the existence of enormous diversity within an overarching unity rather than seeking to deny or reduce these differences by subjecting them to a single Procrustean bed, philosopher Andrey Teslya says.

            Precisely because the November 4 holiday seems so artificial and has not been defined by the powers that be, he argues, it has become if anything a time when Russians can celebrate the most varied things – from expelling foreigners to reorganizing the state from below as happened in the 17^th century (sibreal.org/a/30250623.html).

            There are truly “a mass of things which divide us beginning with the way of life and political preferences and ending with matters of faith, understanding of the past and dreams about the future,” Teslya says.  “But the Day of National Unity isn’t a time for doing away with these differences; it is above them,” a sign that “in spite of everything, ‘we really form a ‘we.’” 

            It is not about singing “in unison” but in singing harmoniously or at least listening to each other. And that has become possible precisely because the holiday seems so unnecessary, unimportant and undefined. But because it is that, it is “possible” that such dismissive attitudes toward the November 4 holiday are not the end of the story.

            Like social organization from below and even federalism, this holiday may be “’a sleeping institution,’” one which will take on new meaning and thus give new possibilities for the country in the future, Teslya continues. If so, it “will acquire its own reality” and celebrate unity in diversity and a willingness to live together with all being heard and taken into account.